hlarocchia



My name is Heather Larocchia and I am entering my second year of teaching. I am a recent graduate of New York University, where I earned a BA in Literature with a minor in Media, Culture, and Communications. During my first year of teaching I taught 7th grade: two 90-minute ELA periods and one period of science. I work in a growing school (we are entering our third year and adding an 8th grade this September) and this summer I am helping write the ELA curriculum. As of now, I am assigned to be the 7th grade ELA teacher for next year and will teach two traditional ELA blocks and one ICT block.

I am from and have lived all my life in various parts of New York State. I was born in Queens, but raised mostly upstate and moved to Manhattan for college. I currently live in Bedstuy, Brooklyn and work in Jamaica, Queens. I have spent two semesters studying abroad, one in London and the other in Buenos Aires. During these semesters I developed a love for travel and I do it as often as I can. This August I will be making my first solo around-the-world trip where I will travel in a full circle around the globe, entering 8 countries and spending extended time in Japan, Finland, Poland, and England. I have a photo blog that I try to update with pictures from my travels: Heather Marie Photos

As writers, we all have a unique voice that we carry with us and develop over the years. As we grow, we refine that voice; we make it understandable to a wider audience, thereby making it more powerful. The writing we do online with our friends and the way we speak at home may vary from how we speak and write in school, but our unique voice is equally present and valued in all situations. Our goal in ELA class is to develop our academic language without losing the language we speak and write with outside of school. We want to develop our voice, not limit it. This is done by creating relationships between school and home, by creating partnerships between teachers, parents, and students. We can maintain the language that we feel comfortable with speaking outside of the school walls, while still preparing ourselves for college and careers through knowledge of academic language. By working together, our voices all become stronger!
 * __My Philosophy on Teaching Grammar: __**

Many consider grammar to be the foundation of academic language. Grammar is of extreme importance in my classroom; however, you will not see any workbooks or “correct-all” worksheets on my desk. As one person of authority on grammar, I believe the best way to learn grammar is to put it in action. Instead of workbooks and fill-in-the-blanks, we build our grammar knowledge through writing. In our class, we will read a wide range of texts that expose us to proper grammar and how it functions. We will engage in many writing activities where we will demonstrate our own grammar knowledge using our own unique voices. We will grow as writers not through the memorization of terms and definitions, but by actively participating in the act of writing.